You’ve got to not only be able to see the truth of the reality around you, but also tell that truth to your group or organization. This requires experience, expertise, finesse, and before any of that, a willingness to look for it.

Lots of folks refuse to acknowledge what they see and know to be true. Some may look around their department at work or their staff at church or their team on the field and know something to be true. Perhaps their department uses a process that has at least two unnecessary and redundant steps (but it was the boss who put it in place). Perhaps their church staff has a pastor far more interested in status than in actually ministering in any meaningful way (outside the pulpit) to the people in the pews. Perhaps their team is stubbornly sticking to a game plan that may have worked previously, but hasn’t for some time now.

It’s not that these folks want to lie to themselves. But they’re certainly in denial.

Often there’s a small group, or even just an individual, who can see the truth; but that group or individual doesn’t want to speak up, because, well, the status quo is awfully comfortable. To say the Emperor is actuallynaked, after all, could be professional suicide. To question is to be a troublemaker, or so goes the myth you’ve bought into.

Organizations and groups that really get it will seek out someone who can see things for what they are, and further still, will stand up and talk about it. An individual who really gets it will be that person.